Welcome to Global & Immoral, an open forum for a World of Contrasts!

Greetings!

The undersigned is a Master in International Affairs graduate of Ming Chuan University’s Graduate School of International Affairs (MCU-GSIA), Taiwan, Republic of China.

Taking off from my undergraduate course, which was Public Communication/Journalism. I have recently presented my thesis dissertation entitled International Radio broadcasting in a Globalizing World. The study focused on evaluating the new paradigms for the International Governmental Radio Broadcasting Agencies, considering a wide range of media & broadcasting resources in a globalizing world, thus examining their new role - International media shall provide room for debate and discussion of Global issues, in an international scenario of interdependence and Technological convergence.

Partially, Marshall McLuhan’s “global village”, in which everyone in the world system has the opportunity to listen and to be heard through an international communications network, is bringing the peoples and nations of the world closer together. On the other hand, we cannot ignore the Last Mile[2]. The majority of the residents of this global village are deprived of even the most basic tools of modern communication, information and knowledge.

According to the United Nations Millennium Development Goals Report 2006 access to information and communication technologies continues to outpace global economic growth .[3] However, by the end of 2004, 14 per cent of the world’s population was using the Internet, with a large digital divide separating developed and developing regions: Over half the population in developed regions had access to the Internet, compared to 7 per cent in developing regions and less than 1 per cent in the 50 least developed countries.

The new communication technologies can encourage wider participation and greater equality in politics and society. Yet doubts remain as to whether these communication infrastructures are capable of withstanding the attacks of international communication interests in a sustained manner, not just sporadically, as was perhaps the case at the Earth Summit held in June 1992, in Rio de Janeiro.

As a professional of media, with the ambition of performing further relevant works as a news reporter, I intend to keep on studying and perhaps develop alternatives to face the existing problems in the global information and communication order. As a liberal professional, I strongly believe that independent journalism can overcame the cultural gap of a prevailing ethnocentrism, focus on violence and shallow oversimplified reporting; what cannot be solved by advances in communications technology.

For the future generations, technological specialization and familiarity to the new devices, in a democratic environment, focused on educational basis, would certainly build up a decisive leap, for cultural, scientific and economical development.

Welcome to Global & Immoral, an open forum for a World of Contrasts!

葛駱世




[1] McPHAIL, Thomas L. Global Communication: Theories, Stakeholders and Trends. 2nd ed. Blackwell Publishing, Malden, MA. 2006. p.283

[2] Countryside. Little villages where is clear the lack of communication facilities provided by international technologies corporations, widely spread in the metropolitan areas. The Last Mile is not enough profitable attractive. Lecture offered by Dr. John Hwang, The Graduate School of International Affairs - Ming Chuan University, Taiwan, 2006.

[3] THE MILLENNIUM DEVELOPMENT GOALS REPORT 2006 in: http://unstats.un.org/unsd/mdg/Resources/Static/Products/Progress2006/MDGReport2006.pdf